Tuesday, October 10, 2006

If the scant information online is correct, then Käthe Schönberger from Austria was 15 years old when she produced the illustrations for 'Aus Thier und Menschenleben' ('From Animal and Human Lives') in 1896. The personification of animals theme is very reminiscent of JJ Grandville's work (see particularly the uniformed chickens fighting). She picked a fine mentor, if so. The facial expressions and demeanour displayed above are really quite sophisticated at times.

I understand Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger (as she came to be called) died in 1967. There are other books around at commercial sites but they were all in German and I didn't pay much attention while searching for images.

Olshausen-Schönberger is known to have produced work for the german illustration magazine 'Ulk' - Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg have digitized copies but I didn't go through looking for her illustrations.

A wonderful self-description of this artist's, Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger's, work appeared in "Contemporary Illustrators of Children's Books" by Bertha Mahony and Elinor Whitney, published by The Bookshop for Boys and Girls in 1930.